A Key West Recap and How To Make Easy Flounder Cakes

After having so much delicious seafood in the Florida Keys, I was in the mood for some more! I decided to make some flounder fish cakes this time, which turned out to be deliciously moist on the inside and crispy on the outside.

Now for all my regular readers, you know that I like to work smart and not hard, or I suppose I mean cook smart and not hard, and so this recipe is another super easy one.

The Keys were a great vacation. The sun, the water, and most importantly, THE FOOD. There was just so much to see and do in Old Key West that we probably could’ve stayed for a month and not gotten to everything. The culture was just so fun and laid back. It was great being able to just walk around in swimming trunks and nobody even giving a second glance. Everyone was hot, and so it wasn’t weird to be sweating profusely (as I was the entire time) since everyone else was doing it too.

To give you guys a brief visual tour of some of the things my wonderful fiancee and I saw (and ate) in Key West …

Our first night we ate at a little French place right on Duval Street in the open air watching people and having some delicious fresh flounder with sauteed vegetables and a just caught Florida Gulf Coast shrimp and avocado salad.

We then got to see some of Ernest Hemingway’s six toed cats lounging about his house during a tour.

A delicious breakfast of some fresh lobster eggs benedict was on the menu for an enjoyable brunch at the Blue Heaven open air restaurant.

Probably my favorite lunch of our stay was my Overstuffed Lobster Roll and Rae’s Conch Fritter Wraps over at DJ’s Clam Shack, which was also featured on Diner’s Drive-ins and Dives for any fans.

We also saw roosters pretty much all over the island. They looked like they ran the place and walked where ever they wanted.

Finally, on our last day we grabbed this boxed lunch of an awesome grilled grouper sandwich with avocados and some very definitely not low carb french fries, and we watched the beautiful sunset over at Mallory Square for the nightly Sunset Celebration. It was the perfect way to spend our last night in Key West.

There was so much more we did like riding our bicycles around the island, looking through all the local art shops, seeing the many street performers (one had cats that did tricks!), but if I posted all of that this post would be way too long.

Now back to my original topic of making some flounder fish cakes. As you can see, we did not follow the strictest low carb diet on our vacation (it was a vacation after all), but once I got back to North Carolina, I was still in the mood for some seafood, so I whipped up these flounder fish cakes.

Old bay, flounder, one egg, coconut oil, and my Ninja Blender were all I used to make this yummy dinner.

First get your ingredients for the fish cakes. I had defrosted some frozen flounder that I had gotten wholesale at Costco (my go to wholesale store).

Put the egg, flounder, and Old Bay Seasoning into the blender.

Blend until it is the consistency of a paste.

Put the blended fish in a bowl for easy access to make into patties. You can also just scoop it out from the blender if you want to keep a bowl clean.

Get a large non-stick pan and preheat on high until it is HOT. Then put the coconut oil in and make sure that it is HOT too. If it isn’t, the fish cakes won’t brown on the outside and get crispy.

Form patties that are about 1/3 to 1/2 an inch thick and about 2 and 1/2 inch you want. Make sure not to crowd them too much and sprinkle some more Old Bay on the patties.

Fry until browned on one side for about 3-5 minutees and then flip. If the oil is hot enough, they should crisp quickly.

33 thoughts on “A Key West Recap and How To Make Easy Flounder Cakes”

Ok, now I’m hungry! A very entertaining post that combines touristic information about the inviting Old Key West and the great seafood that they serve there. The Flounder fish cake recipe looks fairly simple-enough for a novice like me to try. Great pictures to guide me. Thanks for the enticement!

Key West was a great vacation and perfect for what we were looking for. I tried to make the recipe as simple and easy as possible, and I think I succeeded. I hope you try it out and thanks for stopping by!

You’ve done it again, Pete! I’m loving this recipe! I’m a huge fan of fish, so this is already looking like a worthy recipe. Fish cakes aren’t my favorite fish dish (lol), but I wanna try this recipe of yours.

It lives up to the low-carb mantra, that’s for sure; it has 0! I’m guessing the coconut oil is the secret? And typical of fish (I think), it has a low calorie count to boot. That makes this an appealing recipe for me. I hope it tastes as good as it looks. Do you taste a difference between your recipe and store-bought fish, Pete? Thanks for another great recipe!

Fish cakes aren’t something you will usually find in restaurants, but I think the flavor was pretty good. Old Bay is a classic fish seasoning, and flounder is a yummy fish just by itself. I will say though that because there isn’t any breading in this recipe, you won’t get that breaded taste from the fish. Maybe next time I will try it out with some coconut flour as well, but I thought these turned out pretty good and were really easy to make. Add a little tartar and sriracha and you’re good to go!

That actually looks quite yum. The recipe was very clear and easy to follow and some great pics. Do you do recipe videos? The vacation looked excellent so much great fresh seafood and different flavours – even the eggs benedict tempted me.

Looks like you had a great time in Key West. I have only been there once for about an hour on a cruise so I need to make it back there to experience it.
This recipe for flounder cakes looks really simple. They look like they hold together really well despite no breadcrumbs. How is the consistency of them?

Key West is a great little place to visit multiple times I would say. The cakes hold up well if the oil is hot and they aren’t extremely wet. The consistency is crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside if they aren’t overcooked.

All these food pictures look really good, it’s getting me hungry. The recipe looks easy enough to follow, you laid it out nicely, which is good for me as I really suck in the kitchen. I may have to try this out sometime. I have recently tried going low carb and I have been having a hard time finding recipes, so Im glad I found your site. I will have to check out your other posts! Thanks

Yummy! I absolutely love seafood but unfortunately I’m landlocked and don’t get fresh seafood very often! I haven’t even seen frozen flounder in the grocery markets here in Alberta Canada – Is there any other fish you would recommend I could use? I also love your use of coconut oil! I’m trying to incorporate it into more of my cooking and can only imagine how awesome it would be in this recipe!

Pete, I am happy you took some time off with your fiance. Your vacation sounds like you both had a great time. Thanks for sharing those pictures as well

I just love the flounder fish cake recipe. Talk about easy! I did not think of blending in the Ninja Blender. Good idea. What about using a regular blender, food processor or NutriBullet? Those are what I have. Just wondered if you tried using any of these for the purpose. Keep sharing.

Wow, great pictorials. It made me hungry and want to run to the kitchen to prepare some flounder fish cakes, sounds like a plan.
I like how you kindly shared a recipe, they must really be very delicious. It is a great article, I’ll be looking for it to see how much more you’ll share and to subscribe to your page, wouldn’t miss it for the world. Thank you and keep up the great work.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful journey and the great food you came across. Honestly I am hungry now! Most of all thank you for sharing such a good recipe for the flounder cakes. This is a must try since its something in my department of cooking. Thank you for sharing and I look forward to reading more from you.

The breakfast dish I had was a lobster eggs benedits so those were some huge chunks of lobster on the eggs. As for the fried fish the oil adds some calories but there is no breading so I think it’s worth the extra few calories and health fats coming from the coconut oil.

I enjoyed reading about your time in Key West, it looks like a wonderful place to visit. You describe the recipe well with great images. Now I finished reading your post I’m hungry and the fishcakes look really good.

Hi, Pete. Thank you for your sharing!
The food in your trip looks very delicious. I also want to try them now LOL
It seems that it is very easy for me to make flounder cake and it also looks yummy. But I have one question. Why do you use Coconut Oil? Is it because it is more healthier than other oil?

These pictures have me drooling. There are some recipes on here that I must try. I have a sensitivity to shellfish, but flounder I can definitely do and that sounds so delicious. I like to cook only a couple of times a week and have leftovers so that I don’t have to worry about dinner. I think this is something I could make and have the next night. Thanks for the great recipe ideas. I look forward to seeing more.